"The 3rd Chakra: The Will of the Spiritual Warrior"
"The 3rd Chakra: The Will of the Spiritual Warrior"
The Third Chakra is the center of energy, will power, and a sense of control and coordination. It is associated with the region around the Navel Point. It is fed by the fire from the solar plexus and ruled by the element of fire. It is the driving force to act and to complete conceptualizations and visualizations that one has in life.
The Navel Center is a beginning. It's the first point through which we are fed, nurtured, and given the energy to live as a fetus in the womb of the mother. Once your physical connection with the mother is severed, the Navel Point continues the more subtle function of being an area to collect energy from the Cosmos. As you walk and alternate the motion of your legs and arms, there is a function of the body to gradually accumulate energy at the Navel Point.
The Third Chakra is considered the reserve pool of energy within the body. It is from this area that the kundalini energy is initiated. The reserve energy at the navel gathers strength and then awakens the slumbering kundalini which lies coiled through the First Chakra. Then the kundalini energy begins its journey of awakening and arousal along the spine.
The stimulation, strengthening, and distribution of energy at the Navel Chakra is a central part of a kundalini kriya. Stretch Pose (raising the heels and the shoulders six inches and doing Breath of Fire) stimulates the Navel Point. When the energy flows properly, it creates a coordination among all the organs of the body. The eliminative functions are triggered, the sense of having enough energy to support your actions is gathered, and the will to project that energy to support your actions is given to you.
The energy lotus of the Third Chakra has ten petals. Ten represents the number of completion—the sense of the individual self, represented by the number one, and the sense of the infinite self, represented by the number zero. Ten petals means that the person who has mastered the Third Chakra knows how to initiate and complete an action. That is why it is associated with the archetype of the spiritual warrior, one who is able to know one's mission and formulate the energy to act and complete it.
A spiritual warrior is conscious of each action and knows to act in relation to higher consciousness. The essence of a spiritual warrior is fearlessness, an ability to act with integrity regardless of conditions. A person who is strong at the Third Chakra will have a sense that their life and the quality of their life depends on what they do. They are doers. They can shape, direct, and develop what happens within their life. There's a deep confidence. The fire element associated with this chakra represents a willingness to initiate.
When in doubt in the Third Chakra, act. Do something, shake the boat, project your point, or get a vision, an image sent from the higher commander in self. A person acting in the Third Chakra is rarely still.
When the Third Chakra energy is insufficient, a person has to compensate. If you don't feel you have enough energy to accomplish your task, you reach out for other sources of energy to gather that. This can be stimulants, drugs, or food. When you have a lot of feelings (whether they be anger, blame, resentment, or just raw ambition), and yet you feel that you don't have the right or the energy to express them, you begin to gather energy instinctively into the Navel Center. It is the gathering—an accumulation at the Navel Center—that prepares you to initiate action, to initiate the kundalini and awareness, to begin the path of embodiment.
Without a strong Third Chakra, you have many ideas and many good intentions but they do not come to fruition. With a strong Third Chakra, even your least intentions create actions and begin to stir the ethers. The qualities associated with the Third Chakra are highly valued in our culture. We're very supportive of the go-getter, the one who initiates, the entrepreneur and risk-taker. We admire the one who raises the hand first and takes the risk to accept a task regardless of the security and the assuredness of its outcomes.
Visualization access gives us a stronger sense of control and accesses the will power. A person who is strong in the Third Chakra will have a relationship to their feelings that uses the feelings to accomplish their goals. They will also look to the past to give them information about accomplishing things in the future.
Many successful people who constantly formulate plans visualize their goals and create a concrete image. The tangibility of an image, the concreteness of each of its many parts, builds the sense of focus and will associated with the Third Chakra.
Excerpts from the KRI Aquarian Teacher Training Manual